The Originals Review: Episode 2×10 - “Gonna Set Your Flag on Fire”

Stained Shirts, Lock-ins, and A New Mikaelson In The Tension-Filled Mid-Season Premiere Of ‘The Originals’

On this week’s The Originals, things pick up not long after the events of the mid-season finale. Hayley and Elijah make eyes at each other after their steamy hook-up (finally!), Finn carries on his zealous path and starts to come even more into his own as a character, and Rebekah starts to learn that getting out of the house and body Kol trapped her in won’t be so easy. But Rebekah isn’t the only one who finds herself trapped, as Finn locks the vampires and werewolves in, upping the blood-thirst of the vampires to further up the stakes. Cami gets to meet baby Hope but gets more than she bargained for in dealing with a not-entirely-stable Elijah. Hayley is wracked with guilt regarding whether to admit to Jackson the truth about her and Elijah, but will Klaus’ advice on the matter sway her decision? Will the hungry vampires put an end to Josh and Aiden’s romance before it’s even fully begun? How will Rebekah take to being in a witch body and what secrets lie waiting to be discovered in the creepy back room? There’s a million and one plot points woven together and plenty to discuss!

The Noble Elijah, Tormented By Long Buried Secrets

It’s been some time now since Elijah was taken captive by his mother and tortured by her. Having been forced to relive many of his most brutal memories, as well as having dreams in which a less-restrained version of himself chases down and feeds on Hayley. Since then, much of Elijah’s agency has been removed from him, as he is left to sit and fester in his own self-doubt and guilt. In this episode, we see Elijah spend the majority of his screen time opposite Cami, who has habitually been an outside voice of reason for those she comes in contact with. Previously, much of this energy and psychoanalysing had been employed for Klaus but this time, it was the suited Mikaelson who needed some guidance.

“I owe you an apology. My sister’s missing, my family’s in jeopardy, I am utterly powerless to help them. It’s not a state of affairs I’m accustomed to. Perhaps I’m not weathering this ordeal as well as one would hope. Forgive me.” ~ Elijah

It was a tad confusing for Elijah to be put in charge of guarding baby Hope while Klaus was away, since he still decided have Cami present to… look after him, I suppose? If things got really bad with Elijah, realistically, what could Cami do to fend him off? Cami’s not an incapable woman but bottom line, she is still a human while Elijah is a thousand-year-old Original vampire. But putting that aside, Daniel Gillies and Leah Pipes did play well off of each other considering the fact that they haven’t had nearly as much screen time together compared to some of the other more frequently observed plot pairings. Gillies beautifully portrayed the moments where Elijah’s inner-turmoil came bubbling towards the surface, both through the physical display of his determination to remove a stain from his shirt (which under other circumstances could have been comical considering Elijah’s propensity for being the best dressed and groomed character), as well as the moment when he nearly feeds on Cami. The apology afterwards regarding his behaviour seemed to more so resemble the Elijah we’ve grown accustomed to so perhaps Cami will help change the tide in Elijah’s journey back and hopefully in time to stop Hayley’s wedding and admit he loves her because come on, already. There was even some solid comedy between the two when they played some board games to pass the time and Elijah already knew all the answers. These little details in characterisation only serve to make Elijah more interesting as we can’t help but picture him spending chunks of his recreation time over the centuries, reading up on even the most obscure trivia.

Klaus Mikaelson, Peacekeeper… Sometimes.

Though Klaus’ self-improvement and character development has hit plenty of speed bumps, his reunion with baby Hope seems to have pushed him forward like nothing else we’ve seen before. We can already see that he has moved past the jealousy and insecurity he had in season one pertaining to Elijah and Hayley having a relationship with one another, and he even went so far as to playfully (and hilariously) tease Hayley about finally hooking up with Elijah and how pleased they seem to be because of it. Indeed, this seemed the case since it seemed as if Hayley smiled more in this episode than her entire run on the show so far. But part of what makes Klaus continue to be such a compelling character is that he’s not the sort to simply flip a switch and be fine and dandy. He can still enact revenge on someone who he feels has wronged him, and be brutal in doing so. However, it’s his ability to pull back from his impulsivity that expands the scope of what he can accomplish, and all the more dangerous to his enemies.

“The truth is, Hayley, it’s not love on which the strongest foundations are built. It’s the decency of merciful lies.” ~ Klaus

One of the benefits to Klaus being just a bit less hot-tempered is that Joseph Morgan gets more opportunity to play a wider range of emotions. We see him smiling, laughing, and cracking some jokes; that moment where he made phone static noise to sass Finn to get on with sharing his demands instead of just monologuing away had us laughing out loud. It was also a nicely self-aware bit as it was almost as if the writers were poking fun at the ‘monologuing villain’ trope. In addition to Klaus essentially give Elijah and Hayley his blessing and encouragement to pursue a relationship, we see Klaus intervene to keep Josh from succumbing to his magically-amped-up blood thirst and nearly feed on Aiden. Though it isn’t entirely clear if Klaus knows the full extent of Josh and Aiden’s relationship, his stopping Josh from feeding was both a smart move to try to maintain the still-shaky relationship between the vampires and werewolves, and a kind one since it would prevent a bloodbath from ensuing and Josh from killing - something Josh doesn’t seem all that keen on to begin with. These demonstrations of Klaus’ development are important for the longevity of the character and the show itself since it keeps the story moving forward instead of recycling the same problems again and again. If the writers can carry on with this quality of development for all the characters and plots, it would be a welcome to have the show carry on for a few more years.

Pound Me The Witch Drums

There were a lot of moving pieces as far as witchcraft was concerned this episode but for the most part it was balanced and executed well. Kol has to team up with Davina to try to bring down Finn’s spell that had trapped the vampires and werewolves together. Their dialogue was kept to a minimum, which was a good choice since their interactions have had a hard time matching the levels set by many of the other leads. Finn’s magic wasn’t only being used for this particular entrapment; we see that he has done something to disarm Mikael which appears to be part of some larger ritual. When he successfully forces Klaus’ hand into revealing Esther’s location, their reunion proved to be their most explosive interaction yet. Finn, having spent centuries being brainwashed by Esther’s extremist beliefs, is horrified to learn that Esther is now a vampire and tells her off for going against her own morality. It was perhaps Yusuf Gatewood’s best scene to date, and further proved that he was undoubtedly the best choice to play this character. Gatewood has set a whole new standard for Finn we didn’t know was possible and we couldn’t be more impressed by his performance. This was Gatewood’s strongest episode to date and he stood out tremendously.

“You’re a hypocrite. You speak of purification, of cleansing the souls of our family and yet you caved to temptation rather than standing with your principle. It was your morality, mother, your conviction that awed me. That’s why I stood by you, that’s why I fought for you! I would’ve done anything for you, my mother, she who gave me life. But I know that she would want for me to finish what we started.” ~ Finn

The other interesting witch-related plot point was that of Rebekah’s. We know that she had been trapped in a house full of witches, in the body of one of them, by Kol as revenge for a ‘wrong’ she had done to him a hundred years prior. Although there were more questions posed than answers, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing to introduce the arc since it was enough to draw us in and eager to see how everything will play out. What’s with these pills that the witches are forced to take? How did the hierarchy in place develop? Originals newcomer Maisie Richardson-Sellers had quite the task of stepping into this already well-established character but she handled it very well and made us feel confident that she will be up to the task of however much more Rebekah-material she is given to play. Our favourite sequence of all in the episode came when Rebekah went to the creepy back room to explore and came across a coffin with the body of a dead witch (?) that she had had visions of. Director Rob Hardy constructed an eerily beautiful sequence with tinkling music to enhance the shots of the coffin, the body’s folded hands, and Rebekah’s expression at taking it all in. The final revelation of the episode, that the body was that of the long-lost Mikaelson sister Freya, was terribly exciting albeit not entirely surprising… after all the only thing rarer than a Mikaelson death is a Mikaelson staying dead.

FINAL VERDICT

This mid-season premiere of The Originals delivered many satisfying plot developments and introductions for what may come in the remainder of the season. Writers Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson had quite the task at hand to maintain so many character and their many separate and intertwined plot points and did well at keeping all those plates spinning. We loved the twist of Klaus betraying Kol as vengeance for Rebekah, because in hindsight it meant that he had to have enough restraint to play nice with Kol (which gave us that hilarious banter in which they picked on Finn) long enough to ensure Kol would get the spell down before finally pouncing. This level of planning and calculation makes Klaus even more brilliant and fun to watch. The main points we didn’t care for is the continued neglecting of Marcel, who has yet to have any individual agency or thoroughly-developed plot points this season, which is a terrible waste of Charles Michael Davis’ talents which were on better display last season. Jackson’s proposal also came across a bit clumsy, as we had a *facepalm* moment when he tried to claim that he loved Hayley before he even met her. Really? What sort of mind-numbingly terrible dialogue is that? Perhaps those more easily swept up with terrible rom-com jargon would be charmed by this but here but that simply didn’t do anything for us here. It was nice to see a bit more interaction between one of our favourite couples, Josh and Aiden, as their relationship seems arguably one of the most functional of any on the show and we never tire of the entirely charming chemistry between Steven Kreuger and Colin Woodell. It certainly appears as if the writers have the rest of the season mapped out fairly well and we look forward to seeing it all play out.

Questions, Comments, Concerns…

• OH MY GAWD Elijah and Hayley making sex-eyes at each other IT IS SO HOT IN HERE, let me get my fan!
• Esther, stop acting like you’re not going to drink that blood and get on with it.
• New-Rebekah is SO pretty… if this gig doesn’t pan out, I am fully recommending this girl go on America’s Next Top Model.
• How does Jackson not see that Hayley just got some? She is GLOWING. She also smiled, which she rarely does, so… come on boy. Wake up and smell the vampire and hybrid sweat.
• This brotherly sass is doing everything for me right now. #Banter
• Oh Finn. What did you just do? But hey, if these vamps and wolves are all locked up together… perhaps we’ll get some #Jaiden action? I wouldn’t be mad about that…
• Yeah, Elijah, knock back a few drinks. Loose up that tie… undo a few buttons, you know… whatever makes you feel more comfortable.
• KLAUS KNOWS HAYLEY AND ELIJAH GOT BUSY AND HE TOTALLY SHIPS IT YAAAAS
• Well well well, look at Klaus dishing out the advice! See what you’re capable of when you keep your temper in check?
• Well, Elijah certainly knows his trivia.
• Someone get Elijah some stain remover before he gives himself an ulcer… or an aneurysm. #LAWD
• I can’t deal with the flawlessness that is Aiden’s hair. #LemmeTouchIt
• HAYLEY IS IN LOVE WITH ELIJAH IT IS OFFICIAL
• Oh my gawd it’s Jaiden sexy time LET ME GET MY FAN FIRST
• BOYFRIEND. BOYFRIEND. BOYFRIEND!!! #Jaiden
• Finn is trying to mess up my precious Originals OTP #Jaiden and I’m about to knock him through a wall for it. #DontYouEvenDare
• Wait, why is Klaus not effected by this spell? Is the werewolf blood serving as protection? If he makes them all hybrids, will that fix it?
• Wow Finn, way to be melodramatic.
• Klaus’ phone static sound effect… yes.
• I know plenty of folks would love for Elijah to take a bite out of them but… probably not like that. I don’t blame Cami for being scared.
• Finn went through all that mess to save Esther but she’s already a vampire. Go ahead and laugh; it’s funny!
• Josh literally killed to save Aiden, and then Klaus kept Josh from doing something he’d forever regret MY EMOTIONS
• Finn is totally right to call out Esther. That’s what you get for talking all that trash but not following through with it. Nothing good ever came from being a zealot.
• Aiden isn’t even mad at Josh, he just wants him to be okay. *clutches heart*
• Yeah… Kol… you brought this on yourself. Get bit, you backstabber.
• Jackson, while I commend you for not holding a grudge, you’re awfully foolish for professing love to someone you hardly know. Don’t even pretend like Hayley’s not going to pull a Runaway Bride so she can get back to her impeccably dressed one-true-love.
• So are the Mikaelson parents dead, or…?
• Yusuf Gatewood does so well with these mini-monologues.
• Oh dear… a new Mikaelson? How will the family deal with this explosive revelation?!